Abstract
Agro-industrial waste valorization is an attractive approach that offers new alternatives to deal with shrinkage and residue problems. One of these approaches is the synthesis of advanced carbon materials. Current research has shown that citrus waste, mainly orange peel, can be a precursor for the synthesis of high-quality carbon materials for chemical adsorption and energy storage applications. A recent approach to the utilization of advanced carbon materials based on lignocellulosic biomass is their use in solar absorber coatings for solar-thermal applications. This study focused on the production of biochar from Citrus aurantium orange peel by a pyrolysis process at different temperatures. Biochars were characterized by SEM, elemental analysis, TGA-DSC, FTIR, DRX, Raman, and XPS spectroscopies. Optical properties such as diffuse reflectance in the UV−VIS−NIR region was also determined. Physical-chemical characterization revealed that the pyrolysis temperature had a negative effect in yield of biochars, whereas biochars with a higher carbon content, aromaticity, thermal stability, and structural order were produced as the temperature increased. Diffuse reflectance measurements revealed that it is possible to reduce the reflectance of the material by controlling its pyrolysis temperature, producing a material with physicochemical and optical properties that could be attractive for use as a pigment in solar absorber coatings.
Highlights
Agro-industrial and food waste are an alarming problem on the planet
The objective of this study is to investigate the production of carbonaceous materials through the pyrolysis of Citrus aurantium orange peel and to evaluate the resulting characteristics and optical properties resulting from using different temperatures in the pyrolysis process, to identify the best characteristics for possible use in solar absorber coatings
The effect of the pyrolysis temperature on the biochar carbonization yield (CY) is shown in Table 1, where it is observed that yield decreased with the increase of pyrolysis temperature; the highest yield was produced at 400 ◦ C, while the lowest was produced at 800 ◦ C, observing a further thermal decomposition of the sour orange peel (SOP) constituents
Summary
Agro-industrial and food waste are an alarming problem on the planet. The numbers are outstanding—almost 1 billion tons of edible food waste are thrown out each year worldwide and the total food supply chain is of several billions. The use of agroresidues as a source of natural products and value-added chemicals could promote the necessary investments to reduce the negative socioeconomic and environmental impacts caused by food and agro waste; for this purpose, plenty of research efforts are necessary in the short term to guarantee suitable progress in this field [2]. In this sense, the valorization of this type of waste is an attractive approach that could offer useful alternatives through the production of value-added chemicals, fuels, and advanced carbon materials [1,3]
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